A realistic plan for the future of Barnstable's school buildings, technology, and grounds

Written by Patrick Murphy

June 25, 2010

In my last article I discussed how the Barnstable School Department has been engaged in long-term, realistic capital planning to make sure our school buildings, technology, and grounds will meet our children’s needs for decades to come. These are not plans that sit on a shelf and gather dust but a requirements list that is prioritized, completed, and refocused each school year.

The centerpiece of our long-term capital plan is a catalog of every school project identified at our eight current buildings. This list is made up of basic infrastructure needs including windows, roofs, electrical upgrades, heating plants, and plumbing projects worth more than $17 million in current value.

The three other components of a long-term plan include aggressive and consistent technology investments, playground and field improvements, and completing the plans for the three school buildings that were closed last year. As reported over the past year, we are making good progress on these three areas.

With the Town Council’s 10-3 final vote to release capital funds from the sale of the former Grade 5 building, we are thrilled to begin building the BHS track and artificial turf field. This is a project of benefit to the entire community. After a six-month review process and six-plus years since this project was originally proposed, it is gratifying to finally get the shovels in the ground this summer.

Our expectation is that building this one all purpose, always available track and field complex will free up maintenance time and some smaller capital outlays to slowly rebuild the other elements of our school grounds and playing fields. Overuse of our athletic fields and playgrounds is a good problem to have. Improving lighting, creating or replacing bleachers, rebuilding natural grass fields and upgrading play structures are remaining capital needs for our fields and grounds.

To stay competitive with other school districts and continue to make Barnstable attractive to families, we could certainly invest several million dollars in this area.

To be clear, we have also used this same source of capital funds to completely replace and upgrade the heating system at the K-3 Barnstable Horace Mann school and invest in technology during last year’s massive reorganization. Fortunately, in every instance, we have benefited from extremely favorable vendor bids receiving qualified responses hundreds of thousands of dollars lower than expected.

On the technology front, our school district has made impressive strides over the last few years. Barnstable was literally at the bottom of State technology rankings just five years ago. Since then, we have been able to prioritize technology investments consistently and leap forward to a position of regional leadership.

As one of the Cape’s largest users of the Internet and communications technology, we will need to continue to invest additional resources in order to leverage the soon to be built OpenCape network. OpenCape is a collaborative nonprofit project leveraging Federal and State funds to provide regional educational, governmental, and healthcare institutions access to a truly world-class fiber and wireless network infrastructure.

Given that our schools’ Internet demand requirements double every 12 to 18 months, this is a welcome investment. Our plan is to set aside and grow “savings” account dollars in order to stay on pace with technology capital investments from now on. This would allow us to make needed investments beyond our basic technology operating budget. As an estimate, we will need to free up at least an additional $3.5 million in focused technology capital investments over the next decade.

For those totaling up the list of the schools’ capital spending requirements for the next decade, the numbers start to look daunting. However, a four-pronged approach would allow current or more likely future school committees flexibility to leverage several sources of capital funds.

These sources include potentially selling another one or two of the three recently closed elementary schools as the real estate market rebounds over the next decade. This could help with a small but important portion of the total capital requirements, as we have seen with the Grade 5 account.

Continuing the ongoing work with Barnstable’s Capital Improvement Planning committee to whittle away at the schools’ capital project list should impact almost half of the total need during the next 10 years. Reminding a future Superintendent and School Committee to continue our commitment to set aside “savings” account dollars to invest in technology will be of personal interest to me.

The final and largest portion of school-based capital project resources may require a town-wide vote by 2015. This would be a debt override vote that asks voters to replace expiring capital bond funds for school projects completed in the early 1990s with new capital bond funds. The financial estimate is that there would be no increased net impact on the taxpayer for these school-based capital projects.

Over the next year, we will be making decisions on the next use of the Marstons Mills school building, continuing to communicate the school-based details of our cataloged capital projects, reviewing the viability of an in-house transportation plan, opening up our new track and field complex, and refreshing our technology plan.

The Barnstable School District has been fully reorganized and is ready to enter the next decade as a right-sized, strong, competitive and vibrant group of school communities. Our schools produce passionate academics, artists, athletes, and thoughtful student leaders. Over the next years, we need to make certain that a commitment to school-based capital investments will be made by our community’s elected leaders too.